One of the reasons this apartment appealed to me when I saw photos online was that -- despite the fact that the ancient furniture, abundance of wall hangings and superfluous wood screamed "grandmother's habitat", it seemed to feature a layout that would be conducive to home schooling: The kitchen is "eat in", which leaves the dining room table to work at. And the reams of shelving and storage in said dining room put most of the classrooms I've "lived" in over the years to shame!

So I set to work, tidying and packing away the various knickknacks currently on display, and setting out the many learning resources we had brought with us. And, after several hours of setting up and a quick (and somewhat disappointing) trip to the local Staples for some larger items, behold, our new classroom, ready for the first day of school this coming Monday! :-D

BEFORE...

AFTER... (click to enlarge for big pictures with descriptive captions!)

Love reading about your adventures with the boys. Your apt looks very homey and spacious not at all what I imagined. Your boys are very lucky. Keep those blog entries coming! Karen

Reply

vera

9/20/2013 11:53:04 am

Yep, we totally lucked out -- I have been checking online, just to see, and stuff in our neighbourhood is pretty pricey... a 3-bedroom like ours is hard to come by. I do wish we had a pot with a lid, though, and a decent cheese grater, haha. Funny, the little things you miss when you are not in your own home!!!

Thanks for the shout out -- nice to know some one is reading our blog! ;-P

Reply

Trevor

9/20/2013 09:18:19 am

Looking good. Let the studies begin!

Reply

vera

9/20/2013 11:55:45 am

This "morning" was our first day of home schooling (more of a "pre"- home schooling meeting, really). Although I get the sense the boys are excited to get going with the year, I know they are also struggling with how to be with me in "teacher/student" mode -- we are still working out the boundaries of the teacher-mommy situation. :)))

Today we set up our class norms (used Sternig's "Kindness Promise" as a base -- they liked that a lot!)